What Games Mean

I've known for a long time what games are to me personally, and my belief that games can be more than just a fun experience, but an emotional and thought provoking one as well, is what has driven me more than anything to pursue this career.

Today I witnessed something that reaffirmed my personal belief in the way games touch people. There's a game called Passage by Jason Rohrer if you haven't played it yet, I DEMAND that you play it before you finish this blog post. Seriously, it takes only 5 minutes to complete, and if you don't play it now, it will be ruined forever for you below.

Played it?

Good. Now I seriously enjoyed Passage finding it one of the definitive art/indie games out there, a shining example of how emotions can tie into gameplay directly instead of visuals or sound. Well today in lecture our instructor, Keyvan mentioned it, and a couple of my buds in class, Kip and Josh, hadn't played it. Well on break they both loaded it up, and I got to see both of their reactions to it. Their differences in opinion were astonishing. 

Kip played through it, taking it on an emotional level, but without realizing that you could move up or down. Upon realizing this, he felt cheated and tried to explore with what time was left, but unfortunately time ran out for his companion. As he sat yelling at the screen about how it wasn't fair, time ran out for his character too, and the title faded to screen.  It was obvious by the look on his face that this game had affected him on a deep level.

Josh on the other hand, I could hear from the rows in front of me saying how it was the worst game he had ever played, completely pointless, and how he would rather play Shadow the Hedgehog than this game.

Now, neither opinion is wrong, and what I know about both of them, their reactions were fitting. That being said, Kip's reaction was more in line with what the developer had expected, and similar to the reaction I had the first time I played it. That kind of reaction however, the one that I felt, and the one I saw Kip have, is what drives me to make games. It's proof that games can be more than just games, just fun. It's proof that games can mean more.

In contrast however, Josh's reaction is proof that no game can reach everyone. That being said, if I can make a game that gets one person to react like Kip did to Passage, then I'll have achieved my goal as a designer.

Did you play Passage? what did you think? What are games to you?